Obsessor over "the precious" in Tolkien lore / MON 3-2-26 / Wild canid of the Great Lakes region / Sequence of steps to accomplish a goal / Year on the Yucatán / Sci-fi series with a "Time Lord" traveling in a TARDIS

Constructor: Leslie Benson

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (solved Downs-only)

THEME: GIVE A SHOUT OUT (36A: Acknowledge during a broadcast say ... and a hint to the shaded squares) — theme answers start with terms that might be shouted out:

Theme answers:

• FORESHADOW (shouted by a golfer) (17A: Hint at, as what's to come)
• STRIKE GOLD (... by an umpire) (25A: Hit the jackpot, so to speak)
• ACTION PLAN (... by a director) (48A: Sequence of steps to accomplish a goal)
• TIMBER WOLF (... by a logger) (58A: Wild canid of the Great Lakes region)

Word of the Day: TIMBER WOLF (58A) —

[buddy!]

The eastern wolf (Canis lycaon or Canis lupus lycaon), also known as the timber wolf, Algonquin wolf and eastern timber wolf, is a canine of debated taxonomy native to the Great Lakes region and southeastern Canada. It is considered either a unique subspecies of gray wolf, or red wolf, or a separate species from both. Many studies have found the eastern wolf to be the product of ancient and recent genetic admixture between the gray wolf and the coyote, while other studies have found some or all populations of the eastern wolf, as well as coyotes, originally separated from a common ancestor with the wolf over 1 million years ago and that these populations of the eastern wolf may be the same species as or a closely related species to the red wolf (Canis lupus rufus or Canis rufus) of the Southeastern United States. Regardless of its status, it is regarded as unique and therefore worthy of conservation with Canada citing the population in eastern Canada (also known as the "Algonquin wolf") as being the eastern wolf population subject to protection. // There are two forms, the larger being referred to as the Great Lakes-boreal wolf, which is generally found in Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, southeastern Manitoba and northern Ontario, and the smaller being the Algonquin wolf, which inhabits eastern Canada, specifically central and eastern Ontario and southwestern Quebec, with some overlapping and mixing of the two types in the southern portions of northeastern and northwestern Ontario. The eastern wolf's morphology is midway between that of the gray wolf and the coyote. The fur is typically of a grizzled grayish-brown color mixed with cinnamon. The nape, shoulder and tail region are a mix of black and gray, with the flanks and chest being rufous or creamy. It primarily preys on white-tailed deer, but may occasionally hunt moose and beavers.

• • •

The shaded squares are a weird choice. This is an absolutely ordinary first-words (or word parts) type theme. Usually (almost always, as far as I can remember) those first parts are not shaded. Usually the theme clues will be starred and the revealer clue will say something like "... or a hint to the starts of the answers to the starred clues." And then the theme answers themselves will just look ordinary, unshaded. You have to find the words / word parts yourself. No shaded squares unnecessarily telling you "look here!" I don't know why you'd need to also shade those first words / word parts. Why the additional, make-it-super-obvious indication? It's not like the words are hidden or embedded in their answers or anything. Seems absurd. Superfluous. As for the core concept today, it seems a little tepid. These are words that different people shout, sure, but GIVE A SHOUT OUT feels like way too ornate a phrase for a merely shouted word. The "OUT" part was briefly confusing, as I assumed something would be taken "out" of the answers, somehow. The FORE in FORESHADOW is an anomaly, since it's not a separate word like the others. ACTION PLAN is an inherently weak phrase—I've heard of it before, but every time I hear it, I think "so ... just a plan, then?" The phrase "plan of action" somehow rings truer than ACTION PLAN. I wanted a (much) better ACTION answer, is what I'm saying. ACTION FIGURE, something like that. I like that the shaded squares are all shouted words, all shouted in different contexts. There's something kind of fun about shouting these terms in my head to prove the veracity of the theme. But the overall execution just feels a little underwhelming. 

And the fill isn't helping. Audibly groaned at APRS (some things should never be pluralized and this is one of them) (22A: Figs. that include interest), and then again at AREAR (55A: Toward the back), which appears in the NYTXW way way more often than it should, which is never. Hadn't appeared in more than four years before today (good job, everybody!) but there have now been 21 appearances in the Modern Era (bad job, everybody!). ACUTER is a painful comparative adjective. I like this comment from a word reference forum I just found: "The British National Corpus offers ninety-four examples of more acute, and zero of acuter, so it looks like it's unanimous. Don't believe everything you read in dictionaries." AS BAD is AS BAD a partial as you're likely to see (OK, not the worst, but not great) (34A: "There's no such thing ___ publicity"). Then there's the lowest form of fill, the playground retort ("I AM SO!"), and the "anus" passing as "year" (ANO) (8D: Year on the Yucatán). At least they spelled DOCTOR WHO correctly (35D: Sci-fi series with a "Time Lord" traveling in a TARDIS). None of this DR. WHO shenanigans the NYTXW sometimes tries to get away with (nine appearances since '06).

The weirdest answer of the day was definitely SMEAGOL (29D: Obsessor over "the precious" in Tolkien lore). We just had SMEAGOL in the puzzle two days ago (causing no end of spelling trouble for solvers, myself included). And before today, SMEAGOL had only ever been a Friday or Saturday answer. And suddenly it jumps up the easiness scale all the way to Monday? Strange. There have been four SMEAGOL appearances total—two very close to each other in late 2018, then over seven years of silence, and then two more appearances within two days of each other. Congrats to all the solvers who got burned by SMEAGOL on Saturday but then got him today. I think we've had enough, though, now. Back into the volcano with you, Gollum (that's what SMEAGOL is renamed after he becomes corrupted by the One Ring).

Bullets:

• 6D: Bias (SLANT) — in the top half of the puzzle, this clue gave me the most trouble, solving Downs-only. I couldn't think of a synonym for "Bias" besides "prejudice" or maybe "leaning." Just drew a blank. This is not uncommon when solving Downs-only, but what compounded the problem was that I had SEI-E in one of the crosses and the only letter I could think of to go in the blank was "Z." So I put "Z" in and tried to think of synonyms for "Bias" that fit the --AZ- pattern. No luck. Wasn't til later, when I was able to get the final "T" (from STRIKE GOLD) that I realized, with a big "oh, duh," that SEINE was also a viable option there. Nothing else about the Downs-only solve gave me nearly so much trouble. But only because I was dead-certain about SMEAGOL and how to spell it (having seen it just two days ago). If I'd solved this puzzle last Monday, I think SMEAGOL might've held me up at least a little.
• 4D: Knight captures bishop, e.g. (CHESS MOVE) — wasn't sure how I felt about this answer at first but now I think it's probably the most interesting thing in the grid. I suppose at first it seemed a little ... wobbly, somehow. I had this "is that a strong enough standalone phrase? I ... think so?"And now I just think so. No "question mark?" about it.
• 14A: The Potato State (IDAHO) — pfffffft, IDAHO is the Gem State. Their license plates read "Famous Potatoes." My family is from IDAHO so I'm well aware of the state's association with potatoes, and I got this answer easily, but I don't think I've ever heard IDAHO called The Potato State. This is certainly the first time it's been clued this way. It's been clued [Potato state] a few times, with a lowercase "s" on "state," but that's not a title. Wikipedia has The Potato State listed as an unofficial title, so the clue is not wrong. Unofficial, but not wrong. Side note: the state motto of IDAHO is "ESTO Perpetua." This occasionally (seldom, but occasionally) has crossword relevance.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Metal-shaping tool / SUN 3-1-26 / Philippine seaport with a repetitive name / Sources of fur in some luxury clothing / Old coin worth 1/20 of a pound / It's all there in black and white / Pertaining to conflict, in behavioral science / Dark half of a famous duality / Constellation shaped like a harp / TV giant with a Deportes channel

Constructor: Matt Proulx and Jeffrey Martinovic

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: "Going Down Fast" — theme answers contain "HILL," the letters of which descend downward (in circled squares) with a steepness that changes. based on the ski trail difficulty rating symbol (which interrupts that answer and immediately precedes "HILL"); each "HILL" is thus a different kind of SLIPPERY SLOPE (67A: Certain fallacy .. or what's indicated by every "Sign' in this puzzle's grid):

Theme answers:

• CHINC🟢HILLAS (16A: Sources of fur in some luxury clothing)
• CAPTAIN P🟦HILLIPS (44A: 2013 film whose titular character is captured by Somali pirates)
• BRITISH S♦HILLING (78A: Old coin worth 1/20 of a pound)
• BONE-C♦♦HILLING (105A: Eerie and then some)

Word of the Day: SWAGE (102D: Metal-shaping tool) —

Swaging (/ˈsweɪdʒɪŋ/) is a forging process in which the dimensions of an item are altered using dies into which the item is forced. Swaging is usually a cold working process, but also may be hot worked.

The term swage may apply to the process (verb) or to a die or tool (noun) used in that process. 

["Eccentric Swage Nipple" is my favorite '60s psychedelic rock band]

The term "swage" comes from the Old French term souage, meaning "decorative groove" or "ornamental moulding". Swages were originally tools used by blacksmiths to form metal into various shapes too intricate to make with a hammer alone. These have handles for holding or pegs for attaching to an anvil, and often a flat head for striking with a hammer. Swage blocks are anvil-like dies with various shapes forged into them, which are also used for forming metal. Swages called "fullers" are specific to making grooves in swords and knives. (wikipedia)

• • •

This was certainly inventive, though I can't say it was that enjoyable for me. I haven't skied in decades, but I'm at least vaguely aware of the trail rating system, so picking up the theme wasn't too hard, and once I did, all the HILLs just filled themselves in, which made the whole thing even easier than it already was. I guess the puzzle does the best it can to work the "HILL"s into different levels of steepness, but the final one, the double-diamond "HILL," is preposterous. That's not a hill, that's a cliff. A sheer cliff. SLIPPERY SLOPE is a fairly apt way of describing any ski slope, so the revealer was fine, if not exactly a true revelation or a genuine "aha." I feel like this is a three-star puzzle, but I'm gonna bump it a half-star for creativity. Gotta respect a big swing. But I can't say this was fun to solve. I could admire the structural and architectural elements of the theme, but in the end, the theme answers themselves were just "HILL"-containing answers—nothing inherently interesting about that. And as I say, all the "HILL"s were just handed to me on a platter, which made the theme answers easier, and thus duller, than they should've been. I hate any references to fur, so the CHINCHILLAS clue was off-putting, and I hate any references to the world of Harry Potter, so the FULL BEARD clue was off-putting (41D: Notable feature of Hagrid or Gandalf). Also, I don't really believe FULL BEARD is a thing. It's just a beard. We call that a beard. Worst of all, from an editing perspective, was the clue on LAV (10D: British bathroom), which uses "British" when BRITISH already appears as a full word in the grid (BRITISH SHILLING). So easy—soooo easy—to change that clue to [Bristol bathroom] or [Birmingham bathroom] or [Bath bathroom] for god's sake. Really conspicuous words in the grid, particularly theme answers, should not be duped in the clues. Seems negligent or lazy, and definitely inelegant. 

[66D: "Fernando" group, 1976]

The hardest part for me today was the CLAMBER / SHARE A CAB / KEVIN JONAS stack. LO-extreme-L at the idea that I would know any of the first names of the Jonas brothers. Nick? Is one of them named Nick? Yes. How do I know that? I think maybe I also have heard of Joe Jonas. But KEVIN, oof, no. SHARE A CAB makes me want to EAT A SANDWICH ... although I suppose it's got a bit more standalone power than EAT A SANDWICH (18A: Carpool home from the bar, say). Still, I don't think of sharing a cab as "carpooling." And as for CLAMBER ... I kinda sorta wanted it, but I didn't trust myself there (9A: Move awkwardly (up)). Not a word I ever use. The more I look at it, the wronger it looks. Anyway, CLAMB over SHARE A over KEVIN was giving me issues for a bit, esp. since that whole stack was traversed by CHESS, which was very toughly clued (9D: It's all there in black and white). "There?" Where? Also, not all chess sets feature black and white men. In fact, if you do an image search (right now, go ahead) you'll find that very few of the results are black & white. There's always some form of dark and light, but the "white" pieces are often more of a light brown, made out of a light wood. Something like this:

 The clue is still fair, just hard. Not much else about this puzzle was hard. Except SWAGE. LOL, SWAGE, what the hell? (102D: Metal-shaping tool). I needed every cross. Then I had to check and double-check every cross to make sure that I didn't have an error. Then I just stared at it for a second like "really?" Then I just left it there and hoped for the best. Seventeen years since the last appearance of SWAGE. That means I've seen it. I've even blogged about it. I wonder what I said about it in 2009, hang on ... ha, SWAGE didn't even make Word of the Day. The Word of the Day that day was WOLD ... whoa, WOLD and SWAGE crossed at the "W"! Yikes. Nothing so frightening in today's grid.

[76A: Hall's musical partner]

Made a few small mistakes here and there. CIA AGENT before CIA ASSET (3D: Mole, maybe). STEEL TOE before STEEL TIP (86D: Sturdy boot feature). ARIzona before ARKansas (does anyone abbr. "Arkansas" that way??) (6A: State home to the only public diamond mine in the U.S.: Abbr.). Unusual stuff like POULT (70D: Young turkey) and ILOILO (53A: Philippine seaport with a repetitive name) I know from years and years of solving. Historically, the constructor who used ILOILO the most (by far) was Eugene Maleska (who is best known as the editor who preceded Will Shortz). As a constructor (before he became editor), he used ILOILO six (6!) times, which is almost as many times as ILOILO appeared in all the puzzles he edited (7). My point is, if you didn't know ILOILO, don't feel too bad. It was way more common in days of yore. We haven't seen it for about six years. It's been a little over four for POULT, which disappeared for over twelve years there in the early part of this century, but generally appears once every handful of years. Uncommon, for sure. But worth knowing. Bound to come back ... some day.

Bullets:

• 30A: Like Buffalo, N.Y., about 167 days a year, typically (RAINY) — almost half the year? Really? I live only a handful of hours away from Buffalo, and I had no idea. We don't get nearly that much rain here. We do get ~150 days with precipitation, but much of that is snow. I knew about Buffalo's lake effect snow. The snowiness of Buffalo is legendary. Infamous. The rain, wow, real news to me. In fact, I'm not sure the clue is right. It's at least misleading. I'm looking at data that says Buffalo gets 166 days of precipitation, annually. That's rain or snow, not just rain. I submit to you that snowy days are not RAINY.

• 121A: Pertaining to conflict, in behavioral science (AGONISTIC) — I know this word from studying Greek literature. Agon is a Gr. deity who personified conflict, but it's also a term meaning "contest" or "struggle" (that's how I know it, anyway). Here's some good background information from our good friends at merriam-webster dot com:

Agonistic has its roots in ancient Greece—specifically in the agonistic (to use the oldest sense of the word) athletic contests called agons featured at public festivals. From physical conflict to verbal jousting, agonistic came to be used as a synonym for argumentative and later to mean "striving for effect" or "strained." Common current use, however, is biological, relating to confrontational interaction among animals of the same species and the responsive behaviors—such as aggression, flight, or submission—they exhibit. Agonistic is also sometimes used to describe an agonist muscle, a muscle that on contracting is automatically checked and controlled by an opposing muscle, that other muscle being an antagonist. For example, during a bicep curl in weight lifting, the (contracted) bicep is the agonistic muscle and the (relaxed) triceps muscle is the antagonist.

• 69D: Dark half of a famous duality (YIN) — so ... not TOM?

• 18D: Music that's a little offbeat? (SKA) — "Ska is characterized by a walking bass line accented with rhythms on the off beat." (wikipedia)

• 44D: Bumpy ride? (CAMEL) — embarrassed by how long this took me. It's a very good "?" clue and I just blanked and blanked and blanked and even blanked some more after I'd gotten it down to CAME-. "CAMEO?" No, not CAMEO, dummy.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

P.S. if you live in southern Michigan (as I used to) or anywhere near there, really, then guess what? You've got a regional crossword tournament coming up. Detroit! (well, Hamtramck, which is close). It's called the Grid Prix and it takes Thursday, Mar. 19 at Book Suey in Hamtramck, MI. Capacity is limited. I know I have a lot of Ann Arbor readers, specifically, so some of y'all should go check it out! Send me pictures. I miss Michigan. Go Tigers. Go Blue. Here's the info:

P.P.S. A re-reminder that the Boswords 2026 Spring Themeless League starts tomorrow (Mar. 2) with a "Pre-season Puzzle" and then starts in earnest with "Puzzle #1" the week after. You can compete as an individual or as a pairs team. There are well over 600 participants already signed up! More information here.

P.P.P.S. if you're looking for (yet another!) fun little word game to play on your phone, you might try Oroboro, where overlapping words form a circle and you use the clues to complete it. You can set the difficulty level to your liking. Check it out here. 

P.P.P.P.S. if you want a cute word-related gift book, or maybe a book of wordplay you can share with your kids, check out AB@C ("a bee at sea") a new book of gramograms ("puzzles in which letters, numbers, and other symbols are spoken aloud to make words and sentences"). These puzzles were made famous by the great William Steig (I own both his CDB! and CDC?), and now author Rob Meyerson and New Yorker cartoonist Dan Misdea have teamed up for a new, modern collection. Pick it up at bookshop.com or wherever you buy books. You can pick up Steig's books while you're at it!

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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• American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (Stamford, CT, Apr. 10-12, 2026) (registration closed!)

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📘 My other blog 📘:

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